The Little Match Boy
by BadAtNamesAndFaces
Summary: A slight re-working of The Little Match Girl by Hans Christian Andersen...


It was so terribly cold. Snow was falling, and it was almost dark. Evening came on, the last evening of the year. In the cold and gloom a poor little boy, bareheaded and barefoot, was walking through the streets. Of course when he had left his house he'd had slippers on, but what good had they been? They were very big slippers, way too big for him, for they belonged to his father. The little boy had lost them running across the road, where two carriages had rattled by terribly fast. One slipper he'd not been able to find again, and a girl had run off with the other, saying she could use it very well as a cradle some day when she had children of her own. And so the little boy walked on his naked feet, which were quite red and blue with the cold. In an old apron he carried several packages of matches, and he held a box of them in his hand. No one had bought any from him all day long, and no one had given him a cent.

Shivering with cold and hunger, he crept along, a picture of misery, poor little boy! The snowflakes fell on his fair hair, which hung in pretty curls over his neck. In all the windows lights were shining, and there was a wonderful smell of roast goose, for it was New Year's eve. Yes, he thought of that!

In a corner formed by two houses, one of which projected farther out into the street than the other, he sat down and drew up his little feet under him. He was getting colder and colder, but did not dare to go home, for he had sold no matches, nor earned a single cent, and his uncle would surely beat him. Besides, it was cold at home, for they had nothing over them but a roof through which the wind whistled even though the biggest cracks had been stuffed with straw and rags.

His hands were almost dead with cold. Oh, how much one little match might warm him! If he could only take one from the box and rub it against the wall and warm his hands. He drew one out. R-r-ratch! How it sputtered and burned! It made a warm, bright flame, like a little candle, as he held his hands over it; but it gave a strange light! It really seemed to the little boy as if he were sitting before a great iron stove with shining brass knobs and a brass cover. How wonderfully the fire burned! How comfortable it was! The youngster stretched out his feet to warm them too; then the little flame went out, the stove vanished, and he had only the remains of the burnt match in his hand.

He struck another match against the wall. It burned brightly, and when the light fell upon the wall it became transparent like a thin veil, and he could see through it into a room. On the table a snow-white cloth was spread, and on it stood a shining dinner service. The roast goose steamed gloriously, stuffed with apples and prunes. And what was still better, the goose jumped down from the dish and waddled along the floor with a knife and fork in its breast, right over to the little boy. Then the match went out, and he could see only the thick, cold wall. He lighted another match. Then he was sitting under the most beautiful Christmas tree. It was much larger and much more beautiful than the one he had seen last Christmas through the glass door at the rich merchant's home. Thousands of candles burned on the green branches, and colored pictures like those in the printshops looked down at him. The little boy reached both his hands toward them. Then the match went out. But the Christmas lights mounted higher. He saw them now as bright stars in the sky. One of them fell down, forming a long line of fire.

"Now someone is dying," thought the little boy, for his old grandmother, the only person who had loved him, and who was now dead, had told him that when a star fell down a soul went up to God.

He rubbed another match against the wall. It became bright again, and in the glow the old grandmother stood clear and shining, kind and lovely.

"Grandmother!" cried the child. "Oh, take me with you! I know you will disappear when the match is burned out. You will vanish like the warm stove, the wonderful roast goose and the beautiful big Christmas tree!"

And he quickly struck the whole bundle of matches, for he wished to keep his grandmother with him. And the matches burned with such a glow that it became brighter than daylight. Grandmother had never been so grand and beautiful. She took the boy in her arms, to a place away from the cold.

When the little boy woke up, his grandmother was no longer there. The dawn was breaking, and he found himself half buried in hay in the middle of a barn, with a small reindeer nuzzling up against him, looking him in the eye.

"Hello," the boy said, "did you bring me here?" The reindeer nuzzled him some more. The boy looked around the barn as the winter sunlight began streaming in. All the other animals were large horses.

"Are you alone, too?" he asked the reindeer, "My name is Kristoff, what's yours?"


End file.
